This report presents findings from a national survey of Australian public libraries exploring how libraries decide which ebooks to purchase. It reports on data about the goals libraries have in building ebook collections, and how they manage and balance those goals against constraints they face. It also reports on the roles played by publisher-set prices and licence terms.

It is part of a project investigating the legal and social dynamics of ebook lending (as distinct from physical book lending) in public libraries, and how the different regulatory treatment of elending impacts libraries’ abilities to fulfil their public service missions. The project involves collaboration between key library organisations across five jurisdictions: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The project aims to provide detailed, comparative empirical evidence on the elending landscape to support development of evidence-based reforms to law and practice.